The Ackland Art Museum welcomed new curator Dana Cowen to its staff Tuesday, and Cowen plans to fully immerse herself in the extensive collection of European and American art that the museum has to offer.
As the Sheldon Peck Curator for European and American Art before 1950, Cowen will be working with over 10,000 prints, photographs, drawings and other works of art.
She is responsible for working on exhibitions with the permanent collection, bringing in shows from other places, working on acquisitions, researching, releasing publications, conserving artwork, planning exhibits, writing material to accompany exhibits and teaching UNC students and the public.
She will also work with 134 Dutch and Flemish old master drawings dating back to the 17th and 18th centuries, which were donated by UNC double graduate Sheldon Peck and his wife, Leena Peck.
In addition to the donation of artwork, the Pecks donated endowments that cover the new curatorial position, art acquisition and stewardship.
Cowen has not previously worked on a university campus, but she said she is looking forward to being involved in academia and working with UNC students and staff.
"I think the great opportunity of working on a university campus is actually engaging with the students," she said. "I'm looking forward to those kinds of collaborative experiences, to doing extended research, to publishing and all other kinds of great perks that come with working at a university."
Cowen most recently worked with the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha, Neb. as an associate curator of European art, where she reinstalled European galleries that hadn't been reinstalled since 1999 or 2000, worked on major traveling exhibitions and made major acquisitions for the museum’s permanent collection.
She also curated her own show called “Dürer's Women” at The Cleveland Museum of Art, which showcased artwork created by German artist Albrecht Dürer in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. The collection was centered around themes of feminine power and authority in Dürer’s work.